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byBilly Ingram

Legendary
actress Laurette Taylor once defined acting as, "the physical representation
of a mental picture and the projection of an emotional concept."

Radio broadcaster,
motion picture star, TV host and former President of the United States
Ronald Wilson Reagan understood as well as anyone how that related to
politics - how a nod of the head or a defferential pause can project a
relaxed style and make your opponent look stiff. That's part of what made
him one of the great communicators of all time. Politicians by the score
have emulated Reagan's folksy, 'aw-shucks' style but no one has mastered
it in quite the same way.

In today's
relentless media Whurlitzer, a politician can gain experience in front
of the camera in any number of ways - C-SPAN, cable and local TV news
programs, for example. But in the sixties, no politico had (or could hope
to have) the public face time that Ronald Reagan enjoyed.

THE
TV YEARS

By 1947, motion picture actor and leading man Ronald Reagan
was in transition. Despite having made three dozen movies in the previous
ten years, his career was beginning to wind down. That year, his baby
girl, born four months premature, died after surviving a single day. His
marriage to actress Jane Wyman (Falcon Crest) dissolved soon after.

There
were positives - the new medium of television was breaking over the horizon
and Reagan was elected president of the Screen Actors Guild in 1947.

That was
the same year the FBI visited the Reagans, accusing them of having Communist
Party affiliations. The actor agreed to become an informant and testify
as a friendly witness before the House Un-American Activities Committee.
This was the height of the Hollywood blacklist era and Ronald Reagan was
proud to turn names of suspected Hollywood communists over to the FBI;
he and others fought vociferously against what they saw as "communist-like
activity" in the entertainment industry.

A Ronald Reagan political speech from 1948
in which he sounds like a modern day liberal.

Reagan
married
actress Nancy Davis (his co-star in Hellcats of the Navy) on March
4, 1952 and made the transition to television a year later as the MC of
ABC's weekly celebrity profile show, The Orchid Award.

As president
of the actor's union, he came under government scrutiny after signing
a secret, exclusive waiver for MCA (the talent agency that represented
him) to produce television programs in 1952 - this despite laws against
agencies employing their own clients. The FBI in tandem with the Justice
Department investigated; both MCA and the Screen Actors Guild were charged
with violatiing federal antitrust laws while Reagan himself narrowly avoided
prosecution.

Shortly
after this sweetheart deal was finalized, Reagan was made a partner at
MCA and given the hosting gig on MCA's prestigious General
Electric Theater, a weekly anthology series that debuted on
CBS in 1953.

A landmark
television production, General Electric Theater broadcast some
of the finest dramas of TV's early days, with big-event performances by
major film stars who rarely appeared on the small screen, including James
Stewart, Bette Davis, Myrna Loy, Joan Crawford and Gene Tierney.

GE wisely
positioned Ronald Reagan as their respected TV spokesperson and corporate
ambassador - essentially casting him in a role that would propel him all
the way to the White House.

GE Theater
rose to the third most popular show in 1956 and stayed locked in the
top twenty for most of its run, with a quarter of the nation's TVs tuning
in each week. During the series' eight-year run, Reagan made hundreds
of personal appearances around the country on GE's behalf. There was even
an LP for sale in record stores, Themes from the GE Theater, with
a smiling Ronald Reagan front and center on the cover.

Reagan
resigned as SAG president in 1960 following a bitter actor's strike, but
not before presiding over what was known by some in Hollywood as "The
Great Giveaway" - a SAG contract with the studios that provided residuals
only for actorsin films made after 1961. He was roundly
criticized by many of his fellow old-Hollywood stars for this; on the
other hand, a lump sum payment from producers created the Guild's first
Pension and Welfare Plan.

Between the
years 1950 - 1964, Ronald Reagan had been a guest actor on dozens of dramatic
anthology programs like Ford Theater, Schlitz Playhouse of the
Stars and Kraft Suspense Theater, in addition to a rare regular
series appearance on Wagon Train in 1963.

But
it was on comedy-variety shows like The
Milton Berle Texaco Star Theater, Bob Hope Buick Show and
Art Linkletter's House Party that Reagan developed the unflappable,
self-deprecating style that served him so well as a world leader.

"Freedom
is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass
it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected,
and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset
years telling our children and our children's children what it was once
like in the United States where men were free."- Ronald Reagan